


Caving In

by Hakuryen



Series: Road to Hell [4]
Category: Mozart l'Opéra Rock - Mozart/Baguian & Guirao, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Can be read without knowing much about Supernatural, Case Fic, Crossroad Demon Mozart, Hunter Salieri, M/M, Mature tag for spn-typical violence and word choices, brief mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 08:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17680175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hakuryen/pseuds/Hakuryen
Summary: Demons weren't rare by far, mingling amongst humans in crowded bars, looking to strike a deal, or enjoying their time in other establishments while not in literal hell. But most hunters stayed away from them, because of the lack of widely-spread known ways to kill them. Salieri didn't think he had ever known somebody who had fought a demon before.And now he seemed to have one as his own ironic guardian angel.Finally reunited with his mentor Gluck, Salieri and he go on a series of hunts. A certain demon has set it into his mind to join them as often as possible.





	Caving In

**Author's Note:**

> After ten months of silence, I finally reemerge with a new installment in this series ,,, I'm sorry it took me this long, but this oneshot was supposed to be a simple transitioning work at first (which I had no motivation for) but then I got more ideas for it and put way too much time into it.  
> I still hope you like it, so enjoy!

Soft hands suddenly touching his cheeks violently pulled Salieri out of his absentmindedness. His knee-jerk reaction was to grab his gun, where was his gun, the knife in his boot had to suffice _but he wasn't wearing any boots_ , he was in danger-! Until he noticed that all of that had just been another thought process in his sleep-deprived mind. No monster stood before him, ready to take advantage of him not paying attention. It was just Maria. Gluck's wife.

Maria, whom he had known for longer than he had known his real mother. _And wasn't that a happy thought._

"Antonio," her quiet voice reached his ears. "Are you alright? Please tell us what happened, you've been gone for so long. We were worried." The smile on her lips told him care. Her eyes showed concern.

Salieri was still feeling skittish in his skin, despite her soothing presence. Seeing Gluck looming behind her, leaning against the kitchen wall, only enhanced that.

"How much -" He had to swallow around the dryness of his throat. "How much have you told her?"

Gluck thought about his answer for a few moments. "I told her that you saved me from the brink of death. By making a bad decision - by making a deal. And that we had an ... altercation because of it."

Then, Salieri couldn't keep his anxious eyes on him anymore, as Maria pushed the cheeks she was still holding so that he couldn't help but have her in his direct line of sight.

"And I am so grateful for that, dear boy ...."

If only she knew that he did it at the price of his own life. He couldn't look her in the eyes anymore. Instead, he gently pulled her hands off him and moved over to the window, from where he could see the sun approach its zenith.

"After that night, after I had .. I had fled," his throat constricted against the word and he had to take a deep breath to go on. "I kept going south, taking the odd job here and there. Mostly the usual salt 'n' burns, and one vampire who seriously thought he could make me his midnight snack. On the way, a case down in Italy caught my eye. It wasn't anything we had ever seen before - the wound was like a vampire bite, but two times the size of a normal mouth. And it left a silver tooth behind. So I did some research, and found out that it was an Asambosam, but not how to kill it."

Then, he made a pause. Gluck seemed like he needed to digest the information, see if he had ever come across the name. After a few moments of silence, he continued.

"And I didn't want to ask you for help. So I called Mozart. The ... the demon who I made the deal with. Please just let me tell the story for now," he asked when he saw how uncomfortable the both of them looked at the information.

And then he talked. He told them a summary of that hunt, and of what had happened in the presence of the demon, except for maybe leaving out the more scandalous interactions and thoughts he had with and about the demon.

"If he hadn't put it into his head to help me on the hunt, I would be dead now. And our conversation afterwards convinced me to come back here," Salieri tried to pacify when he saw how red Gluck's face had gotten. But the words left a bitter taste on his own tongue. Not only had he made a deal with the materialized evil, he had also worked with him. Fraternized with the enemy. 

"I .. have to digest all of that first," his mentor voiced his inner conflict and fled the room. Now only him and Maria were left, who looked just as distressed as she did every other time they had talked about hunting.

"How about I make us lunch?" she tried to dispel the unpleasant silence. "You're surely -"  
"I'm not hungry," Salieri interrupted her, and already turned towards the door. "And I'm rather tired from my travels. If you don't mind, I'll retire into my room and get some rest."

"Of course not, dear. Rest well, I'll be close should you need me."

His room was still the same as the last time he had entered it. Of course it was - he hadn't been gone for long and it's not like he died. He only nearly did.

The mattress, if ancient, greeted him like an old friend and was heaven on his back, contrary to the motel mattresses he had to endure in the past weeks. It would've probably brought just as much to sleep in his car back then, and he would've saved some money from that - a chain of thought that he barely managed to finish before his brain decided it had been running on too little sleep for too long and promptly knocked him out.

 

* * *

 

 

When he awoke again, it was about 5am. As if by magic, his body had managed to sleep for nearly twenty hours. It felt like he could actually go even longer, but both his stomach and bladder were calling for his urgent attention.

Walking through a house that you're used to seeing flooded in daylight and filled with familiar sounds in the silent early morning hours is always an alien experience. It felt like a weird mirror universe.

Despite how much sleep he had gotten, Salieri still felt tired - so he began to work on making himself some coffee and waited in front of the window he had looked out the day before while the water boiled.

The sun had just begun rising in the far distance. The inky black of night began bleeding a soft yellow, which reminded him of Mozart's hai-

No.

The water finished boiling. He finished preparing his coffee and resolutely sat down to read the newspaper, and not waste another thought on the demon.

Hours went by spent with idle reading and staring into nothingness, until signs of life began to appear in the house. Salieri hoped it would be Maria - now that he was more aware of himself and his surroundings, he noticed that he was pretty ravenous, aside from the fact that he didn't think he was ready to talk to Gluck yet again - but he seemed to have bad luck. The heavy footsteps didn't belong to Maria's fragile body.

When his Mentor walked around the corner and saw Salieri just sitting there, he faltered in his steps, not saying anything. They just stared at each other for a few moments before Gluck finally broke the stillness and walked over to where he sat. As soon as he was within arm's reach, he grabbed for Salieri's shoulders and all the younger hunter could think was _this is it, he's had enough time to think about it and has come to the conclusion that I'm more trouble than I'm worth. He's going to throw me out and never-_

Then he got hugged.

"Antonio, son," Gluck said beside his ear. "I'm sorry I was so distant yesterday, but it was a lot to take in. I am glad that you're back safe."

Then he let him go, but still held him by the shoulders. "Please, tell me everything that happened since the evening when you made the deal in more detail."

  
  


  
  


They spent the better part of the morning doing exactly that, Salieri meticulously recounting everything he remembered, and although it pained him to do so, he chose to leave some of the gritty little details out. Like him having drunk himself into a stupor nearly every day since they had had their altercation, or him finding the crossway demon's vessel incredibly attractive. Both things that he'd vehemently deny if anybody ever found out.

When he got to the part where Mozart began playing a role in his lonesome travels again, he could see that his mentor was forcefully schooling his face into an expressionless mask. It neither helped nor impeded his ability to walk this tightrope of this story's chapter once more – trying to not give away his own thoughts of the demon, or to stoke Gluck's own prejudice. Gluck's _experience_. Hating demons wasn't a prejudice, but a caution as old as time. He had every right to be wary, and so should Salieri.

Should.

Once he finished, Gluck let himself sack back in his chair, closing his eyes and dragging his hands over his face in thought. After a few seconds, he sat back up and looked at Salieri with gravity in his eyes.

"So, if I'm understanding this correctly," he began. "This demon – which has your soul in its claws – saved you from sure, stubborn, death instead of cashing in on your life juice a decade earlier. Not only that, but it's also civil with you and prone to helping you out."  
" _He_ did all that, yes," Salieri corrected.

Gluck only answered with a grumble and looked to be in thought for a few moments.

"We can use that," he then concluded. "For some reason, it –  _he_ – seems to have taken a liking to you, and how often does an eldritch being that might be ancient and sure as hell has some kind of superpowers just fall into mortal hands? We have to use this opportunity, but without growing careless."

Somehow, this didn't sit right with Salieri at all. Gluck was right, in the end.

"For now, you should rest for a few days," his mentor continued when he saw that Salieri would not answer. "We will keep that demon of yours in the back of our minds, and only use him when it's absolutely necessary."

 

* * *

 

Salieri was in a child's body. No – no, he was in _his own_ body, over two decades younger than he thought he was. The room around him was wooden and creaky, with freezing winds creeping in through the cracks of the boards and gnawing at his meager flesh. When he looked out of the window, all he could see was black. Merely a few snowflakes attacked the glass out of nowhere. Suddenly, a sound reached his ears. A soft mewing.

Without warning, his legs were being touched by something soft, and when he looked down, he could see a light-haired tabby cat that was rubbing its face on him, eyes closed. Glad to have some company in this eerie room, he kneeled down to pet it and let out a childish giggle at the feeling of the cat's whiskers tickling his hand. All of a sudden, the cat opened its eyes. They weren't that of a normal cat. Instead, he was confronted with no pupils and red sclera that glowed at him mesmerisingly.

Surprised by his discovery, he recoiled and fell backwards. Simultaneously, two booming voices reached his ears. Some men had appeared out of nowhere, standing a few feet away from him, bracketing what looked like a chair made for torture.

The cat in front of them didn't react to them at all, it simply kept its patient gaze on Salieri.

 **"Antonio,"** the right man's voice boomed. It seemed so familiar, but the man's face was swallowed by shadows and the words reverberated frighteningly inside his little bones.

**"Who is that? What did you think, you foolish** _**boy,** _ **what have you done?** "

The voice seemed to be both of the deepest baritone and ear-piercingly shrill, and with tears springing to his eyes, Salieri pressed his hands over his ears. But it was useless, the following rant seemed to go into,  _ come out of _ , his head, and when he looked up again, the two men were growing in size, their shoulders pressing in on the ceiling. If this continued, everything would crash in around them, why couldn't it  _ stop,  _ he was so scared - 

**"Antonio,"** the voice boomed again.

"Antonio!" And suddenly, he woke up.

His breaths forced themselves in and out his body in quick, painful bursts, and the heavy weight on his shoulder did nothing to ground him.  
"Calm down, son," Gluck's soothing voice finally reached his ears and helped him calm down a little. It had only been a dream. _Yes, nothing more than that._

Still, as he felt the dream's content already slip from his mind, he couldn't help but remember that night in the shack where they had their argument, and, strangely, purely red eyes.

"Where are we?" he asked in an attempt to distract himself. "And what's the time?"

They were just in the process of giving themselves a few free days for hunting – or rather, Gluck was as Salieri himself was a full-time hunter without a normal job – after Salieri had rested for a week by which's end he was metaphorically on his knees, begging his mentor to either come with him or to let him go hunt alone. Right now, they had their eyes set on a possible vampire nest not too far away from Gluck's home.

"We're about to drive into the city, where we should probably look for a motel first and then go have a look at the evidence."

  
  


  
  


A motel wasn't difficult to find. Neither was the evidence, but it was guarded better than the Mona Lisa.  
"I just don't understand why two federal agents would need to look at animal-caused deaths," the bespectacled woman that seemed to be ripe for retirement but too stubborn to leave her post argued.

"And it's not your place to understand, but to obey orders from higher-ups," Salieri warded her off.

"What he means is that it's been assigned to us because there's been special circumstances with other supposed animal-caused deaths in the area, and we're investigating on the matter. We aren't saying that it's definitely part of the ongoing investigation, this is just a routine check to see if it is or not. We'd be very thankful if you'd let us have a look at the victims," Gluck elbowed him and convinced her with his own words, throwing his student a smart-aleck gaze as she gave in and led them to the bodies.

The bites definitely were caused by vampires, the bodies sucked dry, but they reassured the woman in her assumption that the victims had been befallen by some kind of wildlife and that this case wasn't important to their 'investigation'.

It was to their hunting trip, though.

The area didn't hold many vacant places a vampire nest could hide in – and they were sure about it being a nest, as the bites had had different sizes – so they didn't have a lot of difficulties zeroing in on the most likely one and planning for their attack.

  
  


  
  


It was just before dawn and it felt like it was the calm before the storm. They would clear out the vampire nest today, surprise these bloodsuckers while they were fast asleep in the broad daylight, hoping to get them all. Gluck had already recorded a message for his wife should something go wrong, and they were currently in the process of sharpening their machetes to razor-sharp edges.  
The soft grating sounds of whetstones on metal filled the small room they were in. Neither of them did any talking, Gluck being too lost in thought and Salieri being his usual non-talkative self.

It was in the silence between the clangs of metal on stone that Salieri heard the quiet thud of a heel on the wooden floor behind him.

It was purely by reflex that he properly grabbed his machete by the handle, sprung up from where he sat on the edge of a table, and spun around to point the sword at the unknown figure in the room – all in a matter of milliseconds.

And then he saw who was looking at him, not caring about the sword that was literally pointed at his throat. It was fucking Mozart.

"You." He wanted to growl, but what came out was a flat sigh. "What are you doing here?"  
"Hello to you too, dear hunter," the demon smiled and then let his eyes flash towards Gluck. "I see you two have reconciled? I'm glad. And I assume you're on a hunting trip – or are you secretly serial killers with a preference for old-fashioned killing? In which case I really shouldn't have made a contract with you, since you would've already been heading southwards anyway."

"Quit the joking," Salieri scolded at the same time as Gluck pushed the blade in his hand down, immensely surprising the two younger looking men in the room.

"Thank you, Gluck," Mozart said, his usual smile plastered on. "The name's Mozart, but you surely knew that already. I came to offer my help on this case. No charge added."

His mentor looked conflicted. His rough hand stroked his beard, as he pondered over what would be the right thing to do. "Would you mind if Antonio and I talked in private?"  
"No no, go right ahead. I'll wait right here."  
So they went out to their car and sat on its bonnet.

"You know," Gluck began after what had felt like an eternity. "When I said we could use – him – I didn't expect him to literally jump into our arms at the first opportunity. I meant that we should tread carefully, and only use his help if extremely necessary, because pulling the ire of a demon on us would literally be the worst that could happen. But I guess if he offers help himself, he can't get mad at us for using him? I guess?"

Gluck rambling was highly unusual, but Salieri assumed it only cemented just how inexperienced even old hunters were with demons. The black-eyed … monsters? They couldn't be called monsters, could they? They didn't look like them, at least not to their human eyes, but so did a lot of other monsters, like vampires or ghouls. And nothing about Mozart's behaviour seemed monstrous to Salieri, and he hadn't encountered any other demons yet, so calling him a monster seemed uncalled for.

The black-eyed … race? They weren't rare by far, mingling amongst humans in crowded bars, looking to strike a deal, or enjoying their time in other establishments while not in literal hell. But most hunters stayed away from them, because of the lack of widely-spread known ways to kill them. Salieri didn't think he had ever known somebody who had fought a demon before.

And now he seemed to have one as his own ironic guardian angel.

Which … was a thought of which he didn't know where it came from.

"He has helped me once before without consequences, much rather the opposite," he finally answered. "As long as he's the one offering the help and we don't actually step on his foot, it should be fine? And as soon as he does something morally dubious, like hurt a human without reason, we'll bolt and try to distance ourselves from him as much as possible."

And how much had their lives and views on demons changed since he had made that deal.

They both nodded at once and turned around to go back into the motel room, where Mozart was lying on Salieri's bed lopsidedly, drawing patterns in the air with his finger.  
Salieri looked up to the ceiling and – yes, the demon seemed to be using some kind of power to ingrain the patterns into it.

"Could you … let that be? I'm not too keen on having to pay for that, I'm not exactly a millionaire."  
"You could've asked to be one," Mozart smirked and looked at him, his eyes roaming over the young hunter and his mentor.

"I hope you haven't been gossipping? Or secretly planning how to get rid of my body?"

"No, we've been arguing about whether you might actually be a fairy with how much glitter you're leaving on my bed. And is that even your body?" Salieri answered, deadpan, and sat down on one of the kitchenette chairs. "Actually, that's something we should talk about. Is that an alive human you're in? If we're to work together, we won't accept you possessing people."

"Don't worry." Mozart sat up and turned around to him while patting his own chest. "No one in here but me."  
Great, Salieri thought. They had been talking with a heap of infernal smoke inside a dead body then. He had _kissed_ that.

"Well, then," Gluck sighed and sat down on the chair beside Salieri. "So, what do we know about this case so far ..."

 

* * *

 

It was in the middle of the fucking night, and Salieri had been woken up by something. Alerted, his hand reached for the pistol underneath his pillow and his eyes jumped around the room, all while he kept his body breathing as if he were still asleep. Only when he could detect no danger did he sit up a bit to try and see what woke him up.

Gluck himself was happily snoring on in the bed beside Salieri's, and he could neither hear nor see anything in their hotel room or the adjoining bathroom that could've shaken him from his slumber. No running faucets, no flickering lights, nothing. But then he heard it – footsteps, going up and down the wooden footpath in front of their door, pacing, as if waiting.

He was more than on edge. His senses didn't stray from the door and he was about to wake up Gluck when the steps halted and a different sound chimed. A short, soft humming; the kind of sound you make when you look for something and find it without having to look for long.

It sounded like it belonged to Mozart.

"Ah, there you are. Why did you ask to meet up? You know you could've just called or sent me a text." Yes, obviously Mozart. He was trying to whisper but failing.

Another, much less familiar voice answered. "No, I'd rather not. It's more difficult to spy on private conversations than on ones held over the phone. Now, let's go somewhere else."

Salieri felt like he should know the woman that spoke, her dulcet tones pulling on the strings of his memory without making them reverberate. Neither of them said any more, but he could hear two pairs of footsteps move away from the door so he scrambled to get up and to follow them.

This was – this was _bad._ Mozart, the demon who he wouldn't trust as far as he could throw him, was secretly meeting up with some stranger in the dead of night, possibly to sell them out. Granted, he wasn't doing a good job by literally meeting up on their doorstep, but being an entity with actual supernatural powers probably made one less careful around lesser beings.

Worrying about not catching up to them, he didn't bother to put shoes on, running out in the clothes he had slept in, not having cared about putting on something different to go to bed. The ground underneath his socks was damp and the wood uneven. It must have drizzled while he was asleep. The lights from the motel's neon signs temporarily blinded him as he looked out for Mozart and his companion, until he just barely saw them walking across the parking lot and into the bordering forest.

On swift feet, he followed.  
They didn't go far, and Salieri hid behind a tree far away to hopefully not be discovered but close enough to still hear what they said. He had caught sight of the woman's back, long blonde curls swinging softly with her steps, and her voice again rang some bells for him.

It took him a while to remember where he had met the woman, but finally it hit him. She was the other demon who had come to free Mozart a few weeks ago in that freezing shack.

"So, why did you want to meet up?" Mozart asked the blonde. "I thought you were really busy right now."  
"Yes, thanks to you." Her words were scalding, but her tone soft. Salieri recoiled from her tender voice, one which couldn't have belonged to a demon. One which masked the danger that emanated from the speaker, a knife covered in silken cloth. His breath sounded like thunderclaps to his own ears, and he lifted his head up to the skies to straighten his throat and to make breathing easier. He couldn't see them anymore like this, but at least the possibility of him being discovered wasn't as high anymore.

"Thanks to me?" Mozart retorted and, oh, he sounded like a small child that had been scolded for taking a cookie without asking.

"You can't imagine how much I'm covering for you. You waste time away _helping_ this … this hunter without gaining any profit, and as a result your rate of deals is dropping. I've been pulling extra shifts and all kind of tricks just to make more people sign contracts so that I can write the excess off on you. But this can't keep going on Mozart, this is dangerous for the both of us. If the boss gets wind of this … And all this just because you're lusting after a human. A hunter, no less!"

Up to that point, Salieri had been listening in rapt attention, his curious side wanting to learn more about demonic hierarchy.

Her last remark struck him like hot iron, and he snuck away as quietly as he could and ran.

Longing for a walk but not daring to stay outside any longer, he returned to their room and lay down in bed again, waiting for dawn to arrive as he couldn't find sleep anymore, her words bouncing off the walls of his mind over and over again.

The next morning, Mozart was gone. No trace was left of him, and Gluck accepted his disappearance with a shrug. Salieri didn't tell him of the night before.

The vampire nest was larger than they had thought it would be, but it was nothing they couldn't handle, even though they could clearly feel the toil. His arm covered in the blood of the vampires he had just beheaded and feeling not the least bit satisfied for having rid the world of one more group of monsters, Salieri couldn't help but think how much easier it would've been with Mozart there.

 

* * *

 

The weeks dragged by and where he had before been battling the thoughts of Mozart, his brain was now fighting back and flooding him with memories and could-be-memories. It ranged from dreams – no, he told himself, mares, be it night or daymares – to just going through his daily life and suddenly having Mozart's dazzling appearance printed on the back of his eyelids.

He coped like he always did – by drinking and hunting. For naught. The drinking made him weak and his imagination stronger, and the danger of hunts didn't keep his mind off wishing for the help of the demon. But it was no worse than being idle and better than to repress his thoughts and feelings. He was coping, if not well.

Gluck wasn't his steady companion anymore, like he had been for those first few hunts after Salieri had found his way back to him, but he still occasionally joined his student when he saw it fit. It just so happened that he saw it fit to join in on the current hunt, Gassmann in tow.

They didn't even bother to call in beforehand, instead choosing to just suddenly stand in front of his motel room door. Salieri wasn't even surprised.

"I've got a single room," he greeted them. "Get your own."

"Hello to you too, Antonio," Gassmann shouldered his way through the door and walked over to the wall where Salieri had hung up all his evidence for the case. "Long time no see."  
Enquiring, Salieri threw a glance at his mentor, who merely shook his head. Gassmann didn't know everything about what had happened after that night in the hut, then. A soft thud was to be heard – a knapsack fallen to the floor – and just a second later Gluck embraced him, his big hands patting Salieri's back before falling off him so that the man could bend down and catch his wallet from his bag.

"In that case I'll rent a room for us, Gassmann. You can get briefed by Salieri on the case in the meantime." And then the door closed behind him.

A short silence.

"You really gotta hide these better," Gassmann finally broke the quiet. "If the cleaning lady comes in here she might think you're the murderer."  
He was looking at the pictures of the victims that Salieri had hung up on the wall; they were between 22 and 50 years of age, both women and men, with a broad range of ethnicities.

"Is there any connection between them?"

"They're all yoga teachers."  
"You're shitting me."  
No comment. Gassmann turned back around to the wall of evidence and read through the reports.

"All of them were attacked during their morning routine and had their hearts ripped out and presumably eaten. A few of their other body parts had also been nibbled on. A werewolf?" Gassmann spoke as he looked over the evidence.  
"That's what I thought too, at first, but they were killed outside of the full moon. Do you have any idea what else it could be?"

While the older man was looking over the reports and pictures Salieri had gathered, he himself had sat down in front of his laptop again, which he had been doing research on before the two men knocked on his door. A few tabs with possible monsters glowed at him from the top of the screen, but the sources were mediocre at best. God, he hated research.

Again, he clicked through every website and read through their titles, mentally marking down which ones were more likely than others.

"One, maybe," the other man finally answered. "Ever heard of Okamis?"  
"Got a tab opened on an article about them." He clicked on it. "But what would an Okami do in Switzerland? I thought they rarely left Japan."  
"Sightseeing," Gassmann grinned and was just about to segue into another sentence when the door opened and Gluck came back in.

"Got us a room two doors down," he greeted them and gently closed the door behind himself. "What are we dealing with?"

"Possible Okami," Gassmann answered as the two men walked over to the little table where Salieri was to sit down too. At Gluck's dumbfounded face, Salieri elaborated.

"Kind of like a Japanese werewolf. They choose their victims according to a preference or pattern and eat their hearts. This one seems to like to attack yoga teachers while they're doing their sun salutations."

"I'll be damned," Gassman laughed. "You actually weren't kidding."  
Gluck didn't seem fazed as he stroked his chin. "And how do you kill them?"  
  
  


  
  


Salieri's website didn't say and so they spent the evening digging around the internet, until Gluck eventually leaned back with a groan and stretched. "I'm going to make some calls, see if any of my acquaintances have got any clue how to kill this thing."  
"Someone should create a Facebook for hunters," Salieri murmured, his eyes still glued to the screen. "Or a shared Google Docs where people can jot down their experiences. It's so annoying how every hunter hoards their stories like gold."  
"You tell em, bud," Gassmann pat his shoulder and stood up, followed by Gluck who was already reaching for his phone and going towards the door.  
"I'll have a look around town and scout out other possible victims, since you didn't get that far yet. I'll probably head off to our own room afterwards, so see you tomorrow, Antonio."

And then he was left alone.

His solitude didn't last for long, though, as not even an hour later somebody knocked on his door. Salieri, who had lain down on his bed in boredom after accepting that nothing was to be found on the internet, startled up. The knock hadn't sounded like the rhythms Gluck and Gassmann usually used, and nobody had announced themselves yet. He grabbed his gun and went to the spy hole.

The person at the other side of the door winked at him and gave him a finger wave; for a second, Salieri let his head rest against the door, contemplating whether he should open it or not, before putting his pistol on the table and undoing the locks.

Mozart beamed at him.

"Hello, Antonio," he chirped and invited himself in. "Long time no see."

His legs carried him towards the wall where Salieri had hung up all the evidence and his fingers glid over the pictures. "What are you dealing with?"  
"What are you doing here?" He leant back against the door, his pistol close-by.

"Aw Antonio, you're hurting my feelings." The demon had turned around again and looked at him with a slight pout on his lips. His eyes still spoke of mischief and danger. "I was in the mood for helping out. So, what are _we_ dealing with?"  
Salieri had to swallow around his answer twice before he could voice it. "Likely an Okami. Gluck is making some calls to find out how to kill it. Do you … do you perchance know how?"  
A rare furrow grew between the demon's eyes. "No, sorry. If your mentor doesn't find out then I could try my luck? I'd like to help out, however I can, please."

Mozart's request threw Salieri back to that night in the motel lot, to what he had heard.

_"You waste time away helping this … this hunter without gaining any profit,"_ the female demon had said, and the words must've strung a chord in Mozart as he was gone the next morning. So why was he back now? Was there suddenly some gain to be had? Salieri didn't trust this, and he felt on edge. 

But – could he deny him? This was a powerful being, and who knew if the demon would just take what he wanted if it wasn't given to him voluntarily. At best, he'd only want a favour to cash in later. At worst … what was the worst thing a demon could want? Salieri had already written his soul off to him.

Salieri nodded, and sat down. He could hear the demon leaf through the evidence behind his back and humming a classical song, and wondered what he should do against his own boredom. Before Mozart had come knocking on his door, he had intended to take a nap – this however was out of question now.

After a moment of contemplation, he began keeping his hands and mind occupied by taking apart and reassembling the gun in front of him. After the first reassembly, he could hear Mozart walk towards him; his skin turned to goosebumps and he had to strain to not turn around. The demon sat down on top of the desk right next to Salieri.

Taking care not to take his eyes off his weapon, Salieri took it apart again.

"Talk to me, Antonio," Mozart suddenly spoke up after his third go at the weapon and he looked up out of reflex.

"About what?" Why was his voice so hoarse?  
"Tell me about some of your hunts. What was your first one? What about the ones you've done recently?"

"My first hunt had to do with a ghost, an easy salt'n'burn. Nothing dangerous, Gluck took care to ease me in. As for the hunt when we last saw each other ..."

And like this, he talked. At first, he awkwardly kept looking down at his weapon on the table without meeting the demon's eyes but gradually he relaxed and sat back on his chair, looking up to the blond.

Around 11 p.m., when his tongue was already beginning to feel sluggish and his eyelids drooping, Gluck sent him a message.

_Joseph knew. Bamboo dagger, blessed by a Shinto priest, seven stabs to the chest._ , it read.  _Only two teachers left in the city. Meetup at 5?_

Mozart read over his shoulder. "Tell him I'll take care of acquiring some."  
Instead, he typed out  _I know how to get them. See you tomorrow morning._ Mozart didn't complain.

"You should go to bed," he instead told him. "I'll take care to get enough for all of us this night and come back by your meetup time."  
"How will you do that? I doubt there's many Shinto priests in a Swiss rural area such as this," Salieri asked as he walked over to his bed and toed off his shoes on the way before letting himself fall on it. He caught Mozart wiggling his fingers out of the corner of his eye.  
"Demon, remember? Teleportation."  
"As if I could forget."  
The lights were turned off then and he didn't hear anything for a while, so Salieri just assumed that Mozart had already teleported away and closed his eyes, ready to be taken over by blissful sleep.

But suddenly, the other side of the bed dipped down with the weight of someone sitting down on it and Salieri's eyes flew open.

"I know that you listened in on us in that night in the motel parking lot," Mozart's quiet voice sounded like thunder in the silent room; Salieri's body ignored fight-or-flight mode, instead opting for his less familiar state of 'fright'.

"Don't worry, I'm not mad at you. I shielded you from Nannerl's perception, to be honest. I know you worry about what I want from you, what gain helping you will give me, but worry not – I mean no harm. I know trusting the likes of me isn't easy for you, but it's true. As is what she said. Well, not exactly, but close enough; I'm not merely lusting after you, I find you fascinating out of some reason I don't understand. I find myself wishing to be close to you and to get to know you better. I know it's foolish, but I can see you're not uninterested in me and I'm not one to deny myself things. Good night, Antonio."  
A soft caress of his hair, and the demon was gone.

  
  


  
  


Despite the commotion that went on inside his head, Salieri fell asleep quickly and deeper than usual. Before he knew it, his alarm rang at 4:30 a.m. and made him wake up with a start. The motel room was filled with the soft light of pre-dawn, with the only sound that was to be heard being the loud clock mounted up on the wall above the table. On the table itself lay four bamboo sticks, already sharpened, but when he sat up to look around for Mozart the demon was nowhere to be seen.

"Mozart?" he called out, just to make sure, as he got up and made his way over to his knapsack to find a change of clothing. Nobody answered, but seeing as the demon had acquired four weapons instead of three Salieri simply figured that the demon would join them later.

Maybe that was for the better, as just a few moments later Gluck and Gassmann knocked at his door. Quickly hiding the fourth dagger in his nightstand, Salieri went to let them in.

"Don't these monsters ever sleep? I'm getting old, why do I still have to get up before 5am," Gassmann complained while he walked by Salieri without even a glance and let himself fall on one of the chairs.

Gluck followed after him, a cardboard cupholder with coffee in his hands, and smiled at him much more amicably.

"Morning, son," he greeted. "I hope you slept well, if not much?" A nod, and he closed the door behind his mentor. "And what about the daggers?  
And this, Salieri mentioned towards the table where Gassmann was already examining them.

"How'd you get them, kid? And they're blessed?"  
"I had an acquaintance not too far away who fought Okamis before, he brought them over in the night. And yes, they are." _God_ , he hoped they were. Otherwise, this hunt might go south pretty fast. "So, what's the plan?"  
"We'll split up and watch the teachers. So once the Okami turns up to make a meal out of one of them, we've got somebody there to defend them," Gluck explained, making his way over to the table with Salieri following him. "Once the monster has been killed, the others are called so that they can help eliminate the evidence. How about you being the one to go alone, Antonio? You're younger and more agile than us; our old bones would probably have trouble fighting alone."  
"Sure," he grabbed for a cup and watched as Gluck grabbed some sandwiches from his bag. "And it has to be seven stabs?"  
  
  
  
  
They spent some more time having breakfast before Gluck gave Salieri the address he'd have to cover and they parted ways. He only grabbed the essentials on his way out, and as he was walking towards his car he heard a soft swooshing sound, accompanied with the sudden appearance of Mozart by his side.

"Morning," came the short greeting that he gave without coming to a stop. Mozart took it in stride. "I hope those daggers were blessed?"  
"Mornin'. And yes, they were. Do you have mine?"

The demon's smile looked soft in the light of dawn, and Salieri had to take a moment to remind himself of the the fact that he was looking at a monster from hell while he held up the two daggers and handed one of them over.

"We're covering Sarah Acosta, 40 year old part-time retailer who is teaching yoga in her free time. She lives about two miles away from here so it won't take us long to reach her house. The plan probably is to watch the house from opposite sides and to keep a call up so that we can let the other know if we see the Okami."  
"I guess you wouldn't like it if I took possession of that yoga teacher?"  
And just like that, Salieri was thrown off his game.  
"The fuck?" he hissed and paused his steps. "Are you actually serious? Are you kidding? Of course I don't fucking want you to possess any other humans."  
"My my Antonio, and you kiss your mentor with that mouth?" Mozart grinned at first but let it drop once he saw that Salieri was in no good mood anymore. "Fine, geeze, I won't. It's not like I would've done anything bad while co-driving her, and it would improve our chances at saving her. But your call, I guess. It's not like I care about whether she lives or not."

"It's not a matter of what you do, but of consent. And why are you even helping us if you don't care?" Salieri bristled and closed the rest of the distance to his car, Mozart close behind him.

"You're the only human I care about, Antonio," he heard the whispering that was nigh silent, his head whipping around to look at the demon over the roof of the car. But Mozart had already bowed down to slip into the car, and figuring that he had only imagined it, Salieri followed suit.

  
  


  
  


  
  


The drive itself was short but void of any conversations, and if Salieri winced when Mozart suddenly spoke up as they parked in front of the teacher's house then that was something that would stay between them.

"Do you mind babysitting my body? I'm going to hide in her pipes and vents and only interfere if it becomes critical, I'll come back or call you if I see the monster."  
He waited for a flabbergasted Salieri to nod, and then the hunter could watch as the blonde opened his mouth wide as if screaming and a cloud of red smoke came shooting out, making its way towards the house and disappearing into it. Almost hesitantly, he reached for the wrist of the left-behind vessel and felt for a pulse.

None.

So the demon really walked around in a dead body day in day out.

Sighing and accepting his fate, Salieri sat back and waited. An hour went by, spent with him staring at the house intently and looking like he was just idling whenever a pedestrian walked by.

By the time he had begun to wonder whether the Okami would turn up at Gluck's and Gassmann's prótegé's place instead, a woman that didn't look the least bit like the picture his mentor had shown him walked around Mrs Acosta's house. Her features were clearly Asian, and Salieri already reached for his dagger and prepared himself to run into the house, but what he thought to be the Okami instead did a U-turn towards his car, her eyes dead-set on him. His fight-or-flight response got quelled before it could erupt, as she waved at him and her eyes momentarily became fully red. Okay then, this really was happening.

"Hello Antonio," her female voice greeted him as she slipped into the back of his car.

"I didn't know demons could possess monsters," was his only answer as he already turned the key around in the ignition and started the car.

"Me neither, but it was worth a try." The Okami looked at him with drawn up eyebrows through the front mirror. "You're not going to berate me about morals for possessing a monster, right?"  
"No, she's going to be dead soon anyway. Any wishes for where we should bring her? And did the teacher see anything?"  
"Is there a lake close-by? Then I could dump the body in there. And no, she was still happily yoga-ing away when I saw the Okami sneaking around her house. Happy?"

A rare smile crept onto Salieri's features as he looked back at Mozart through the front mirror, and with his mood suddenly lifted tenfolds he looked for any lakes in his navigation system and steered them towards it.

  
  


  
  


The young sun illuminating them was too beautiful in contrast with the gruesome act they were about to perform; Mozart had told Salieri to tie him to one of the trees so that he could leave the Okami for her death and it was no less weird to see the red smoke leave her body again to reanimate the blond vessel.

"Home sweet home," the demon had grinned at him as he rejoined Salieri in front of the Okami, who had now regained control of her body and was angrily hissing and throwing words at them, and handed him one of the bamboo daggers. "Stab away, I'll tie her to the bottom of that lake afterwards."

And Salieri did. It felt weird stabbing a monster seven times without any feasible resistance, and it didn't feel quite like an accomplishment either, but he'd prefer a non-dangerous hunt over a life-threatening one any day.

"Good job," Mozart told him and removed the rope so that he could teleport away with the body.

A good five, awkward, minutes later, he reappeared drenched to the bones.

Salieri was just about to say something when Mozart snapped his fingers and was suddenly as dry and impeccable as before.

"...Okay," he eventually deadpanned, feeling stupid for standing there with his mouth open. "She's taken care of?"

"Yep, already being nibbled on by the fishes. I bound her to the ground and also put a few heavy rocks on her as a precaution so that she won't drift to the surface, so it'll be quite a while until she gets discovered. If at all." He buried his hands inside his pockets and kicked one of the stones of the lakeshore aside. "You will probably call those two men now and meet up again? Then you … probably won't need me anymore."  
Salieri in turn nodded, whispering a short but genuine 'thank you' and almost expected the demon to suddenly be gone again, but instead he looked insecure; a rare personal emotion on his otherwise suave face.

But before he could ask what's the matter, soft hands carefully reached for his cheeks and he watched in a stupor as the demon closed the distance between their mouths and laid a gentle kiss on his lips. It was unlike the kiss they had shared when sealing their deal; instead of short-lived and intense, this one was drawn out and almost sensual, _sentimental_.

Rigid at first, Salieri soon melted into the kiss – forgetting his place, who exactly he was sharing it with – responding to it with equal fervour, growing soft when Mozart let his tongue slide into his mouth at one point, but not willing to just take it without giving back just as much.

Before he knew it, Mozart parted from him again with a smile and was gone with a last caress to his cheeks.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm screaming, are you?  
> Let's all hope for the next oneshot to take less time to be written (don't worry, I wont break this series off before it's finished!); if you want to know how my writing is progressing - I've pinned a spreadsheet on my twitter profile which I will keep updated.  
> So, yea, comments are much appreciated, and come chat with me on Twitter or Tumblr (@Hakuryen on both) if you'd like!


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